Congress faces time crunch on spending bills

Congress faces a mountain of work and little time to do it -- about 44 legislative days are left in the Senate and fewer in the House before October's scheduled adjournment.

This crunch is so severe this year, Senate leaders are considering attaching a continuing resolution to the fiscal 2007 Defense spending bill -- expected on the floor in that chamber at the end of this month -- to fund other areas of the government until a post-election lame duck session.

Lawmakers generally do not give up the pretense of completing the year's budget work on time until September. But they are aiming to complete the Defense bill by the beginning of the new fiscal year Oct. 1, right around the time Congress is set to adjourn for a month of campaigning.

By attaching the continuing resolution to the all-important Defense bill, GOP leaders are demonstrating they are serious about getting out of town on schedule. A standalone stopgap funding measure could become a magnet for pre-election brinksmanship that might drag out the process, one leadership aide said.

The House has passed 10 of 11 spending bills, with the fiscal 2007 Labor-Health and Human Services bill still a possibility for late July if Republican leaders can find a way to disentangle the bill from the politically thorny issue of an increase in the minimum wage.

But even if the minimum wage is excluded, other problems with the measure make it a prime candidate for a lame-duck session. House Republican leaders promised party moderates that $3 billion more for education and health care would materialize at some point, which would most likely be after the elections.

The full Senate has yet to consider any fiscal 2007 spending bills. With Iraq and renewed terrorism fears on voters' minds, Senate Republicans in July will focus on "security-oriented" spending, the aide said, beginning with the $31.7 billion fiscal 2007 Homeland Security bill on the floor Monday.

Consideration of that bill could dominate the early part of the month, shortening the window of opportunity for other legislation. Senate Appropriations ranking member Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and other Democrats are planning amendments to add hundreds of millions of dollars for border, port, rail, transit and other security measures.

Unrelated amendments with political overtones -- an increase in the minimum wage or immigration-related measures, for example -- also might crop up. "If the November elections come early," debate could extend closer to two weeks, said the leadership aide.

Later in the month, Senate GOP leaders want to bring up the Defense measure and, time allowing, the Military Construction spending bill. Along with Homeland Security, those three are considered the only safe bets for completion before the new fiscal year begins.

"If I'm Harry Reid, there is little political incentive to be cooperative" given the electoral uncertainty, said a former congressional leadership aide who is now a lobbyist.

If Democrats did wrest control of either chamber, it would be to their advantage to wrap up the lame duck quickly and postpone final budget decisions until the following year when they assume the leadership, he said.

But if Republicans hang on in both chambers, an "extensive" lame-duck session will be necessary to complete unfinished business and clear the decks for the 110th Congress. Either scenario could include one or more omnibus spending bills, although leaders in both chambers have pledged to try to move the bills individually.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., has moved half of his 12 bills through committee, with two more on tap for this week and the rest by the end of this month, including the Defense and Military Construction bills on July 20.

Even though Cochran has readied a large chunk of legislation for the floor, July's schedule is already crowded with other emerging possibilities, such as stem cell legislation, estate tax repeal, pension overhaul and line-item veto legislation.

Very few spending bills are seen as having a chance to move across the Senate floor in September, and those that do will have to be done quickly and with little debate. So far, even the Legislative Branch bill, which funds the chamber's own expenses, has run into objections.

Aside from the Labor-HHS bill, the Transportation-Treasury measure -- with highly contentious issues ranging from a pending congressional pay-raise to foreign ownership rules for U.S. airlines to Amtrak funding -- is a prime candidate to be negotiated in a lame-duck session.

Smaller bills, such as the Agriculture, Interior and Energy and Water measures, all have policy and funding fights surrounding them as well and are unlikely to be brought up on the Senate floor before the elections, sources said. The addition of $4 billion in drought aid for Midwestern states to the Agriculture bill makes it a tough sell to GOP conservatives, for example, despite its importance to endangered incumbents.

The bills are crammed with earmarks for endangered Republicans such as Sen. Conrad Burns of Montana and Senate Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who announced projects such as $662,500 in the Agriculture bill for hides and leather research conducted in Wyndmoor, Pa., and $250,000 for a Polish American Cultural Center in Philadelphia in the Interior bill.

But the importance of home-state funds to incumbents can be demonstrated simply by initial approval and a promise to eventually deliver, a Republican aide said. "There are a lot of dynamics ... to show members' effectiveness. It's kind of like saying, 'You elect me and I'll make sure this happens,'" he said.